Bandwidth caps are common to commercial firms, which are typically
paying not just for their Internet connection type but also a block of
bytes each month. Little data appears to be available on caps for
subscribers, even among Internet publications.
The prime reasons caps don’t receive more attention are growth in
network capacity and reduction in costs, chronicled in several
excellent articles. In fact, the trend seems to be so strong that
Internet Magazine (in the U.K.) says in its advice on how to select an
Internet Service Provider (ISP), “at one point it looked as though
there would never be reliable and affordable unmetered access in the
UK, but it seems as though we have just about got there - and it's now
amongst the cheapest access in the world.” The magazine’s selection
guide is here:
http://www.internet-magazine.co.uk/isp/choose.asp
Growth in the fiber optic backbone for the Internet will supply
capacity “that borders on the infinite,” says Gary Stix in a January,
2001, article in Scientific American titled, “The Triumph of the
Light.” In his conclusions, Stix even worries, “What can be done with
all this bandwidth? Lucent estimates that if the growth of networks
continues at its current pace, the world will have enough digital
capacity by 2010 to give every man, woman and child, whether in San
Jose or Sri Lanka, a 100-megabit-a-second connection.”
The Stix article is online here:
http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~yseo/ref/LightSciAm/0101stix.html
There are several other articles that support the same points on
growth in network capacity. Both Adventis and International Data
Corp. researchers predict a rapid fall in network costs, resulting in
predictions that video services becoming prevalent in the Red Herring
article “In the Pipeline: The Bandwidth Explosion Promises New
Applications and Services”:
http://www.adventis.com//news/pdfs/pipeline.pdf
There is lots of information on network costs and trends in this
Adventis article that originally ran in the Boston Globe, “Fiber Optic
Cost $70B More than Necessary”. It has some interesting supply/demand
charts for the fiber optic backbone of the Internet:
http://www.adventis.com/pdf/GlobeArticle_MRB_pdf.pdf
Instead of metering to maximize revenues, the thousands of ISPs are
looking at providing content. This report on the status of the ISP
industry from Analysys, a U.K. research firm contends that ISPs are
pushing revenue growth by services, including dedicated access, Web
hosting and design, systems integration, e-commerce and selling
advertising.
The synopsis is here:
http://www.analysys.com/default.asp?Mode=article&iLeftArticle=198
E-Content in Aug. 2001 quotes Jonathan Hurd, an analyst with Adventis,
a telecommunications consulting firm as saying it will be ‘content’
that is paid for over the Internet, not the connection or number of
bytes. The article also describes issues related to paying for content
(Are customers comfortable using credit cards? Is it best to charge by
article or program or run a subscription service?)
http://www.onlineinc.com/articles/econtent/mcgarvey8_01.html
Government agencies are also assuming that network speeds are growing
faster than demand. In a long and well-footnoted piece on “Changing
Communications Regulations in the Information Age,” Sheridan Scott,
chief regulatory officer for Bell Canada, and David Elder, assistant
general counsel for Bell Canada note that major portions of the
electronic media are planning to use available Internet capacity. The
services include Bell Canada providing voice-over-IP services; Clear
Channel Communications taking content from its 1700 radio stations and
putting it on-line; and many video services. The Scott and Elder
article is here:
http://www.carleton.ca/ctpl/culturepapers/scott.doc
All of these would seem to argue against bandwidth metering along a
utility model, unless in "narrow pipe" markets such as wireless. |
